


Way to Fall

by AliaTurin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 11:59:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12817059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliaTurin/pseuds/AliaTurin
Summary: It’s Memorial day, Cor and Nyx having some hard time dealing with loss. No idea if things like Memorial day or similar would exist in the FFXV world, however it does seem logical considering the pretty constant state of war and the losses thy have to endure





	Way to Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Fic is safe for work however have in mind alcohol problems and grief are mentioned. Thank you for reading comments are appreciated. You can also check out my other works on tumblr: the-immortal-marshal.tumblr.com

Cor disliked these ceremonies. He knew the point of them, he knew that people appropriated it, but he didn’t. He didn’t need a ceremony, speech and few flowers on a monument to remember. He used to look very differently on all that when he was much younger and significantly more irrational. Then he liked the attention, the free drink or food that he can get here or there, but the dead friends started becoming more than the living and life turned out to be a bit more complicated than just killing enemies and protecting the king. Everyone seemed to die around him, the world seemed to fall apart around him, but he was here, standing doing what had to be done, no matter the cost.

Nyx was standing at attention with his fellow glaives listening to the King’s speech. He wasn’t really listening to it. The words were reaching his ears but somehow running past them. Every year it was all the same, behind different words of course. Courage, sacrifice, loss of life, appreciation, gratitude. Someone somewhere out there in the crowd probably cared. The families of soldiers who had died in combat probably were grateful to the King saying few nice words. They were probably even more grateful when at the end of the ceremony all the names of the men and women lost in combat were read. See, your son or daughter might be dead but here are some nice words. Nyx wasn’t angry at the king or the ceremony. There weren’t many ways that one could actually pay respect to the losses of war. What made him angry was the fact that they were still losing people. He came back from deployment last night and he didn’t even have the time to properly mourn the three comrades they have lost. In his books drinking alone a bottle of whiskey wasn’t really properly mourning he needed at least three and getting unconscious at least twice.

Cor came off the stage after he had listed all the Crownsguard men and women that have lost their lives in the past year. Far too many than he liked, but then again even one was too many for him. Drautos was after him on the stage listing his glaives and their accomplishments. Cor spaced out looking at Regis standing proud, face serious like a marble statue. The King looked strong and powerful today which made Cor wonder how many potions it took for that. He knew that soon his friend will be on his list of ‘losses’. That war was costing more than human life. It was absorbing the life force of the Regis and Cor could do nothing but watch. ‘The Immortal’. He wondered how many friends and kings he will outlive before the point that he is in fact very much mortal is proven. Worse what if he really was immortal and he had to watch everyone he knew die? That seemed absurd of course but he had lived through things no one else had. He had outlived so many people that deserved life more than he did. 

Nyx stumbled in the bar grateful that he could finally spend the day drowning his misery and grieving the only way he found acceptable. Unfortunately for him the place was crowded and the only available space was at the bar.

‘Is the place taken?’ he asked the man that was sitting there.

‘No.’ as the man turned toward him Nyx realized that was The Immortal. Cor Leonis. The Marshal himself. He had seen the man around the Citadel and the barracks but he never had the honor of meeting. The sixteen years old in him was screaming inside of his head like a little girl.  

Nyx sat on the chair and ordered a drink. Took the bartender awhile to bring it, but the moment she did, the drink was already gone and he was ordering a second. 

Cor looked at the man next to him ordering his third drink in a roll for a period of less than five minutes and struggled with himself regarding the right course of action. The man was a glaive, and he was pretty sure he had seen him around the Citadel. The way he was drinking was reminding him a lot of Cor himself when he was younger than the man. Alcohol was never Cor’s way to take his anger or grief away, but he certainly had tried. There are times in life when you try everything possible to forget. 

‘You are in the glaive right?’ Cor finally asked. 

‘Yeah…’ the man seemed a bit surprised by the question. Not offended which was good, Cor wasn’t in the mood for a bar fight. 

‘Cor Leonis.’ He offered his hand to the mad and he took it eagerly. 

‘Nyx Ulrich.’

The Marshal’s memory clicked as the name was mentioned. He had heard Titus prize someone by that name, but Cor never had the honor to connect the name with a face. 

‘Tough deployment?’ Cor still wasn’t sure if he wanted to get himself into that. If it were him he would just tell anyone who approached him to fuck off and continue drinking. Of course, that was years ago, he was a different man now, more responsible with way more care for his soldiers or any soldiers the kingdom had for that matter. 

‘Lost three friends.’ Nyx had no idea why he suddenly shared that. He wasn’t in the bar to seek a shoulder to cry on. He didn’t need a shoulder to cry on he needed to forget. 

‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ Cor answered and he lifted his glass signing a toast and then drank. 

‘How do you deal with that?’ Nyx eventually asked after very long silence. That wasn’t like him, but the alcohol and the stone that had been stuck in his throat since yesterday was making him way more talkative than he wanted to be on topics he usually didn’t care to discuss. ‘I mean you are called the Immortal because you have outlived a lot of people.’ Ouch. That was probably a bit too much of a dick move. 

‘You don’t.’ Cor had to wait couple of seconds before answering. He hated when people brought his so-called immortality into conversations and they seemed to do that every fucking time. He wasn’t Immortal, he bled and hurt like everyone else, he just had hard time to die. He smirked. Not dying was kind of the definition of being immortal. ‘You can drink’ he finally continued. ‘You can sleep with different partners every night…you can go for various types of self-destroying behavior, truth is that pain never goes away. You just need to stop blaming yourself.’ Cor almost laughed after he said that. Easy said than done, and he probably should follow his own advice. 

That was when it hit Nyx. Stop blaming yourself. He wasn’t able to name it until now, but he was blaming himself. Sure, he was blaming himself for his family’s sufferings, the fact that he couldn’t help them. That was clear to him. But he never connected the dots that he was also blaming himself for the death of his fellow glaives. Blaming himself for not being there to save them or not being physically able to do so. Blaming himself for being alive. Why did he deserve to be alive when everyone else was dying?


End file.
